Author: Kerry Greenwood
Publisher: Australian Broadcasting Corporation ; Pyrmont, N.S.W.: Roadshow Entertainment [distributor], c2012.
(DVD)
The suggested reading – or viewing – here is the fabulous flapper sleuth of 1920s & 1930s Melbourne high society, Miss Phryne Fisher. She is an independent and strong character who is renowned for her sharp wit, keen deductive reasoning, and of course her sensationally stylish attire. Additionally, she can fly a plane, drive a car, deftly metes justice with her pearl-handled pistol, and prefers lovers to marriage – she is a feminist James Bond long before 007’s time.
Author: Carrie Tiffany
Publisher: Sydney, N.S.W. : Picador/Pan Macmillan Australia, 2005
On board the “Better Farming Train” is an array of educators and resources representing the latest in 1930s scientific wisdom & advice for people living in rural Victoria. Two of these people are Robert, a scientist who tests the content & health of soil samples by tasting them, and Jean, a knowledge-hungry seamstress. They marry and settle in the Mallee intending to prove their scientific methodologies, but in the midst of the Depression, drought, and with WW2 looming they are confronted with their own fragility in the ancient land.
Author: Diane Armstrong
Read by: Deidre Rubenstein
Publisher: Melbourne, Vic. : Bolinda Publishing Pty, Limited, 2011
(CD Audio)
Originally commemorated throughout the British Empire on Queen Victoria’s birthday in May, Empire Day was more commonly known as Cracker Night and celebrated by bonfires and the lighting of fireworks. On Empire Day 1948 we meet the residents of a street in Bondi, half of whom are Australian–born and half who are European migrants searching for a new life after WW2. Each person has their own misconceptions about their neighbours and these are tested and challenged as relationships evolve.
How did you celebrate Empire Day?
Click here for a sample
Author: Geoffrey McGeachin
Read by: Peter Byrne
Publisher: Melbourne, Vic. : Bolinda Publishing Pty, Limited, 2010
(CD Audio)
This is the first novel in the Charlie Berlin Mystery Series and won the Ned Kelly Award for crime writing in 2011. Set in post-WW2 Melbourne & rural Victoria, the protagonist is a pre-war policeman returning to duty while bearing the internal and external scars of his military & POW experiences. It raises issues of the psychological effects of war on both those who served and those who remained at home, and artfully crafts images of a post-war Australian society including rationing, culinary habits, and attitudes to various social groups.
Anyone for a return to ‘Lambs fry Friday’??
Click here for a preview
Author: Tim Winton
Publisher: Pyrmont, N.S.W. : Roadshow Entertainment [distributor], 2011.
(DVD)
In 1944 the Lambs and the Pickles suffer separate devastating tragedies and decide that in order to start over they must leave their rural West Australian homes. They both find shared accommodation in suburban Perth at 1 Cloud Street and over the next 20 years their dysfunction gives rise to loyalty and acceptance in the midst of their differences. “Cloudstreet” has been adapted for the stage, an opera, and this recommended television miniseries, and won the 1992 Miles Franklin Award.
Author: Colleen McCullough
Read by: Deidre Rubenstein
Publisher: Melbourne, Vic. : Bolinda Publishing Pty, Limited, 2013
(Pre-recorded MP3 player)
Australian author, Colleen McCullough, has written a story likened to the epic historical romance “The Thorn Birds”! Bittersweet is a family saga set in depression-era rural New South Wales. What separates two sets of identical twin girls from the same family are their unique personalities and individual aspirations and the way each of them negotiate difficulties in the 1920s and 1930s. What unites them along the way is an even stronger bond of sisterhood and family.
Author: Alex Miller
Publisher: Sydney, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin, 2011
A reflective piece about the caustic, self-absorbed Autumn Laing in the nascent modernist artistic community of 1930s Melbourne (as told in the third-person narrative) and the contemporary Autumn in her old age (as told by her in the first-person). Mirroring the alleged real-life affair between Australian artists Sidney Nolan and Sunday Reed, Autumn’s current-day encounter with her former lover’s wife causes her to attempt reconciling her own acerbic narcissism with the repercussions of her actions over 50 years earlier. It is not a “light” read but it is a beautiful snapshot of Australian artists and landscapes in the 1930s.
